Read Paul

There seem to be two kinds of software users, as different as apples and clockwork oranges. The apple sees the computer as a way to get work done, as a place to watch movies and play games, creative, functional, engaging. The clockwork orange sees the computer as a world to explore, like the Renaissance scholar’s palace of memory. I am the person who can tell how to import the audio file into the word processing document, the person who knows all the keyboard shortcuts and who goes through a hard drive like an archeologist, trying to glue together documents into something new. I am Faust in the computer’s devilish grip, ready to give up a slice of my soul in exchange for secret knowledge and fast Internet access. I’m the one who speaks with my machine late at night.